The Chinese Egg Read Online Free Page A

said.
    â€œSort of jagged bits, like this, only dark. In the middle I saw the accident.”
    â€œSuppose you really could see what’s going to happen next?”
    â€œI don’t want to. It was a lousy thing to happen.”
    â€œBut suppose you could see something nice? Like who won the Derby. We’d all get rich. That wouldn’t be bad.”
    â€œIt won’t happen again.”
    â€œYou mean you hope it wont.”
    â€œIt won’t.”
    Mrs. Stanford came in and sat down.
    â€œMight just as well not have cooked any dinner for all the appetite you two had. Three-quarters of it gone into the dustbin.”
    â€œYou didn’t, Mum! Waste,” Chris said.
    â€œToad-in-the-hole’s never the same warmed up. And don’t you say Waste to me. You should have eaten it, if you didn’t want it thrown away.”
    â€œCouldn’t. Not if you’d paid me.”
    â€œUpsetting, seeing an accident,” Mrs. Stanford agreed.
    â€œVicky saw it twice.”
    â€œWhat do you mean, saw it twice?”
    â€œSaw it before it happened.”
    â€œYou didn’t, did you?” her Mum asked Vicky.
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œBut Vicky, you said. . . .”
    â€œI could have made a mistake, couldn’t I?”
    Chris always knew when Vicky didn’t want to go on talking about something. She got up now from the table and said, “All right if I wash my hair now, Mum? Will you come up and rinse me when I’m ready?”
    â€œYou washed your hair two days ago. What’re you doing it again for now?”
    â€œWasn’t two days. Was Wednesday. That’s three.”
    â€œOnce a week used to be good enough for me when I was a girl.”
    â€œâ€˜Friday night’s Amami night. Take me out and make me tight,’” Chris sang. Adding, in her ordinary voice, “Laurie’s coming to take me out tonight, that’s why I’ve got to wash my hair.” She ducked her mother’s pretended swipe and left the kitchen laughing.
    â€œWell, I don’t know.” Mrs. Stanford said. She looked again at Vicky, sitting across the table and said, “What’s up, love?”
    â€œNothing.”
    There was a pause, then Mrs. Stanford said, “It was the accident, was it?”
    â€œMade me feel shaky, a bit.”
    â€œIs that all?”
    â€œMm.”
    A pause.
    â€œVicky? There’s something wrong, isn’t there?”
    â€œI just don’t feel too good, that’s all,” Vicky said, looking at the table instead of at her mother.
    â€œIs it the old thing?”
    â€œWhat old thing?”
    â€œYou know. Worrying about your father?”
    â€œNot specially. Not more than usual.”
    â€œI’ve often thought he very likely didn’t know.”
    â€œDidn’t know what?”
    â€œAbout you. Your mother might not have told him.”
    â€œWhy wouldn’t she?”
    â€œGirls don’t always. Not if they’re not seeing the fellow any more, I mean.”
    â€œShe didn’t tell you?”
    â€œNot really. There wasn’t all that time. She went so suddenly. That morning she’d been all right, as far as anyone could see. That evening she’d gone. Haemorrhage, it was. They put six pints of blood into her, but they couldn’t save her.”
    â€œDid she think about what was going to happen to me?”
    â€œShe did once say she wished someone like me could look after the baby. Not thinking it would be me, I don’t think.”
    â€œWas it because you and she were in bed next to each other?”
    â€œI s’pose that’s how we started talking. And she liked the way I made a fuss of Chris. Cuddled and talked to her. Silly, I suppose. Some of the mothers in there, they hardly used to look at their babies. Couldn’t wait to get out of hospital, put them on the bottle and hand them over to someone else. Perhaps it was because